Lucky's Girl by William Holloway Read Free Book Online

forgotten.
    Kenny sat in the rocking chair on the porch of his uncle’s cabin. There was another next to it, the one he’d used when he was the kid. Some part of him had thought his uncle would like him sitting in his old rocker after all these years. He was on beer two of the Molson six-pack he’d gotten when they’d crossed the state line. He hadn’t had one of these in… twenty-something years. He wasn’t a big drinker, so two Canadian beers had given him a pleasant buzz to take in the U.P. night.
    It had only taken a few hours of cleaning before both kids had fallen asleep on the old couch. There were three areas of the cabin – the kitchen, which opened on to the living room, and then the bedroom where the bathroom was. His uncle Henry hadn’t been a troglodyte, but he’d been clean in spite of being a shut-in. His clothes had hung in the closet, his boots would be neatly lined up next to the front door. The house had smelled exactly like Kenny had remembered; tobacco, English Leather, and bacon grease. The gun cabinet was still locked, the key on a hook under the sink, with the same four rifles: an M-1 Garand, two deer rifles, and the .22 his uncle had taught him on, plus one double-barreled shotgun and the .45 a grandfather brought home from Okinawa.
    Someone had cleaned out the refrigerator so there’d been no smell of rot.
    Then they’d cut the electricity at the breaker box.
    Kenny dozed off, pulling the flannel shirt around him, starting awake whenever the chair would ease forward or back. He opened his eyes with tingles going up his spine.
    Everything was the same, down to the smallest detail.
    Except he wasn’t a boy, he was a man… and his uncle was dead.
    Other than that, everything was the exactly the same. The TV that his uncle had saved up for about a year to buy, probably in about 1987, the old blue 1975 Ford Pickup, the fishing rods arranged around the back door, the refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen. It had turned right back on when Kenny had hit the circuit breaker. Some things were just not made like they used to be.
    A pair of headlights and the sound of wheels crunching on the dirt driveway stirred him from his reverie. He figured it wouldn’t take long before someone came to investigate who had taken up residence at the old McCord cabin, but Kenny was stunned by the guy getting out of the old mail jeep and grinning sadly at him. It was Mailman Errol, the same guy who’d shown up every day when Kenny was growing up with a handful of junk mail and a VA check once a month. He was still here, still handing out mail, and with the same goddam mail jeep.
    “Well, golly gee, if it ain’t Mailman Errol come to check on the prodigal son… or nephew I guess.”
    “That’s Mayor Mailman Errol to you, Kenny McCord.”
    “Wooowee! We’re hittin’ the bigtime up here in Elton Township! Shouldn’t you be driving a Caddy or something?”
    “Unpaid. I go to the capitol once a year to beg for the funding to keep the lights on around here.”
    “Sad, very sad, Mister Mayor. Why don’t you pull up a rocker here and catch me up on the gossip in the ‘ol Township here. By the way, were you aware that someone repo’d your lake? I’ve heard of broke before, but this is ridiculous.”
    “Don’t mind if I do, McCord, though there ain’t a whole hell of a lot of good news in this part of the world.”
    They sat back in the rockers, looking out into the deep dark woods and big clear sky. Neither said anything for a while but both men knew the other had an awful lot to say, and none of it was going to be easy.
    “I figured Kaminsky would have sent one of his deputies to come check up once someone had noticed a truck sitting in front of the old McCord cabin.”
    Errol lit a Camel, offering one to Kenny. “There’s just Kaminsky and me. We haven’t had the funding for deputies for almost ten years.”
    Kenny exhaled long and hard at Errol’s revelation about how bad things really were.